Ian Ritchie CBE RA

Ian Ritchie CBE RA Dip Arch (dist) ARB RIBA RIAI FSFE FRSA HonFRIAS HonFAIA Hon D Litt  Ian is a Royal Academician (elected 1998), member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (elected 2013), the Honorary Visiting Professor at Liverpool University, and Emeritus Commissioner Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment (CABE). He has been the Royal Academy of Arts’ Professor of Architecture and Chair of its Collections & Library Committee, Visiting Professor of Architecture at Moscow and Vienna Universities, Special Professor at Leeds University faculty of Engineering and taught at the AA and University of Westminster in London. He is an Hon Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, and of the American Institute of Architects, a Fellow of the Society of Façade Engineering. “Ian Ritchie uses the interplay between words and images to distil into poems and aphorisms varied influences from technology, social concerns, history and context. He then translates these into exquisite and delicate forms as etchings. Language is the common currency between them, and there is a remarkable concurrence between the elegant brushstrokes with which he depicts his architectural, sculptural and industrial design projects and their built reality.” (extract from his Royal Academy profile) He currently advises the Royal Shakespeare Company (design); The Ove Arup Foundation (education), the European Construction Technology Platform (research agenda); The Director of the Centre for Urban Science and Progress New York University; The Dean, School of Architecture Design & Construction University of Greenwich; and the Backstage Trust (theatre). Ian Ritchie is the Director of Ian Ritchie Architects Ltd (est.1981) and co-founded Rice Francis Ritchie (RFR) design engineers, Paris (1981, retiring in 1989 to focus on architecture). These practices have realised and contributed to major new architectural and engineering works throughout Europe, including the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art in Madrid, the Leipzig Messe Glass Hall, the Louvre Sculpture Courts and Pyramids, La Villette Cité des Sciences, the Jubilee Line Extension and International Regatta Centre in London, The Spire in Dublin and the Royal Shakespeare Company Courtyard Theatre. Current projects include the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for neuroscience at University College London (completion 2015), Royal Academy of Music’s new opera theatre in London (completion 2016), and reconfiguring the Royal Shakespeare Company Courtyard Theatre, residential led mixed developments in Covent Garden and Bromley, and new business park and visitor centre in Malta. His practice has received more than 60 national and international awards for his projects and shortlisted four times for the RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist and the European Mies Van der Rohe Prize. Ian has personally been honoured with a CBE, the French Academie d’Architecture Grand Silver Medal for Innovation – the first foreign architect and joins a small and illustrious list including Candela, Nervi, Buckminster Fuller, Prouvé and Rice; the Iritecna Design Prize for Europe; Eric Lyons Memorial Award for European Housing and the Commonwealth Association of Architects Award for the Advancement of Architecture. He lectures regularly on art, urbanism, regeneration, light, structures, glass technology and innovation, delivering them at prestigious venues including the Royal Academy of Arts, Tate Gallery, Royal Society of Arts, RIBA, ICA, Hayward Gallery, Pompidou Centre, European Commission, New York Architecture Centre and on behalf of the British Council, CABE, the UK Lord Chancellor and the British Assn. of Science. Ian has acted as design master planner for the Natural History Museum and The British Museum, and for city centre sites in London, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Dublin, Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as conceiving and designing international exhibitions for major European galleries. He is invited regularly to international juries, chairing several, including the French Government ‘Nouveaux Jeunes Albums’ (2004), RIBA Stirling Prize (2006) & Doolan Awards Scotland (2009). His practice has a reputation for delivering designs that are consistently cutting-edge (and unexpected) techniques and materials, inventiveness, imaginatively conceived details, and an integration of architecture, engineering, and fabrication; and has undertaken research and development for major international companies including Corus, Pilkington, Mero and Seele. His firm’s architecture is regularly published in journals and books worldwide. His own books include: (well) Connected Architecture, Ian Ritchie, Berlin/London 1994; The biggest glass palace in the world, Ian Ritchie & Ingerid Helsing Almaas, New York 1997; Alessandro Rocca: Ian Ritchie, Technoecologia, Milano 1998 and Whitney Library of Design, New York 1999; Plymouth Theatre Royal Production Centre, London 2003; The Spire London 2004; The RSC Courtyard Theatre, London 2006; The Leipzig Book of Drawings, RA, London 2007; Lines (a book of poetry illustrated with a selection for his etchings), RA, London 2010; Being: An Architect, RA, London 2014.